The gates of hell are nicer than you think

When you think about the gates of hell, you probably have an image from Dante's inferno of starved bodies being tortured by the devil's  helpers. In my case those helpers include Janet Street Porter, John Terry and Nick Griffin, who are talking, beating people and lecturing (respectively) while screens in the background show the moment Chelsea won the Champions league in a constant, uninterrupted loop to the sound of Backstreet Boys best (worst) hits. Ok, my vision of hell is maybe a bit strange.... *

What you probably don't imagine is this:

Those aren't the Devil's helpers. It's my brother and our self appointed guide Dominic.

Neither are those zebras the devils helpers.

Hell's gate is also a national park . It's one of Kenya's best kept secrets and where I spent Sunday.

After the last three weeks, some R and R was in order. By Saturday, I'd been working all day every day for 20 consecutive days, starting on 17 February with discussions in Madrid about sacrificio ritual sin aturdimiento (ritual slaughter without stunning) and ending with scraping paint off bathroom tiles yesterday afternoon. Even with the prize of a rented house in sight with the house being handed over next Tuesday, motivation had unsurprisingly been sagging.  Mentally it felt like I wasn't too far from the gates of hell.

So Sunday I hooked up with my brother and we cycled around Hell's gate national game park.

"Cycle"? I hear you say. Yes! While the best known of Kenya's 40+ game parks are Masai Mara, Tsavo, Amboseli and Nakuru due to the animals you can see, in my opinion the best is Hell's gate. It is (as far as I know) the only national park which you can enter on foot or by bike.  As a result it does not contain big cats i.e. lions, cheetahs or leopards. However it actually provides you with an even more amazing experience than waking up at 5am to spend the next 2 hours hunting for yellow/spotty things through a pair of binoculars from behind a car window while crossing your legs tightly because you desperately need to pee due to all the coffee you drank to make you semi conscious at such a stupid hour (and in most cases this is how big cat viewing occurs in e.g. Nakuru or Amboseli game parks). The amazing experience that Hell's gate can provide is getting close enough to zebras to almost touch them, sneaking past buffalo and trying to keep up with a galloping gazelle while on your bike.

This is the joy of Hell's gate - getting close to nature.

Incredibly close in some cases.

Even dangerously close in the case of bufallo!

Baby monkey! Just because....

And as if the joy of cycling is not enough, there is also the most amazing gorge with hot springs (which is where I believe the park's name comes from). You have to cycle through the whole park to get there but it's well worth it - a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.... the canyon

You wouldn't guess the canyon was quite that spectacular from the top though.

A room with a view - there is even a campsite, and you can wake up to see this:

If you ever come to Kenya, go to Hell's gate. You won't regret it!

As for me - it's back to work for the very final push. Two more days of house, three days of admin. Then it's back to Europe. To talk about religiose Riten/Schlactung ohne Betaeubung in Bonn. That's slaughter without stunning again. Bit of a different world from the game parks of Kenya...

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* You might have correctly identified a Chelsea theme in my version of hell!